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The moon was named in 2006 after Daphnis, a shepherd, pipes player, and pastoral poet in Greekmythology;[5] he was descendant of the Titans, after whom the largest moons of Saturn are named. Both Daphnis and Pan, the only other known shepherd moon to orbit within Saturn's main rings, are named for mythological figures associated with shepherds.

The waves that Daphnis induces nearby in the A ring have vertical relief (due to its orbital inclination) and cast shadows when Saturn is close to its equinox.

Daphnis was resolved into a disc for the first time in this 2005 Cassini probe image[6]

Before it was photographed, the existence of a moon in Daphnis's position had already been inferred from gravitational ripples observed on the outer edge of the Keeler gap. The waves made by the moon in the inner edge of the gap precede it in orbit, while those on the outer edge lag behind it, due to the differences in relative orbital speed.

Daphnis was discovered by the Cassini Imaging Science Team on May 6, 2005.[3] The discovery images were taken by the Cassiniprobe over 16 min on May 1, 2005, from a time-lapse sequence of 0.180 second narrow-angle-camera exposures of the outer edge of the A ring. The moon was subsequently found in 32 low-phase images taken of the F ring on April 13, 2005 (spanning 18 min) and again in two high-resolution (3.54 km/pixel) low-phase images taken on May 2, 2005, when its 7 km disk was resolved.

The inclination and eccentricity of Daphnis' orbit are very small, but distinguishable from zero. Daphnis' eccentricity causes its distance from Saturn to vary by ~9 km, and its inclination causes it to move up and down by ~17 km. The Keeler Gap, within which Daphnis orbits, is about 42 km wide.